Technorati Looks to Expand Audience

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

July 24, 2006, 3:39 PM

Blog aggregator Technorati relaunched its popular site on Monday, redesigning the site to make it easier to use while making changes to the backend to improve indexing time of new posts. Additionally, the site has improved its link-counting mechanism, which in turn will improve its ranking and authority features, it says.

The changes are part of the site's third anniversary on the Web, and an effort to draw more users into the service. While those that had been with the site since its inception may have not found the site difficult to use, those new to blogging complained that the site was not usable by the everyday Web surfer.

"Because our mantra is to be of service - we set about renovating the Technorati site to make it easier to use for all people, whether they regularly create stuff on the web or not," founder Dave Sifry said.

Additionally, the new site will help users to discover information they may have not been necessarily searching for.

A "discover" section will group interesting Web log posts into categories, which uses an algorithm to give a snapshot of whats being talked about in the blogosphere at any given time. The favorites section also has received a facelift, allowing a registered user to see posts from the blogs he or she most commonly visits on the front page of the site.

Finally, the site has also launched an area where it plans to highlight bloggers across the Web, putting faces to the blogs that people may read on an everyday basis. "I hope you'll enjoy seeing the many ways in which we try to highlight the people who are the real power driving everything we do," Sifry said.

Early response from analysts has been positive. Noted tech pundit Michael Arrington had good things to say about the relaunch. "Thumbs up across the board on this one," he said. "The design is much better and easier to read than its year-old predecessor."